The crunch Coalition meeting of the seven political parties at the Kairaba Hotel ended yesterday in failure. The closed door meeting failed to reach an agreement on the much anticipated decision on President Adama Barrow’s mandate.

Most of the key political leaders that were instrumental in the Coalition formation in 2016 either abstained or refused to join the talks. PDOIS excluded itself from the talks citing the reason that the Coalition had long ceased to exist and that President Barrow had been ruling without any consultation with the Coalition that brought him to power.

The leaders of the UDP, GMC, NRP and the Independent candidate, Isatou Touray boycotted the meeting.

Aja Fatoumatta Jallow-Tambanjang, the convener of the Coalition meeting confirmed that there were setbacks during the meeting and that no decision was taken on Barrow’s mandate as agreed in the 2016 Memorandum of Understanding (MOU).

Jallow-Tambajang said they were only able to review the MOU and made changes on the wordings of the document as well as assigned a committee to finalise the updated MOU for it to be distributed among the stakeholders.

She said the members will meet on Thursday for final endorsement of the updated MOU, adding it has already been adopted.

Asked what decisions were made during the session; and the possible outcomes on Thursday, the chairperson refused to share any development.

‘’The procedure we have is that we cannot tell you the recommendations and conclusions of Thursday meeting because we have to communicate to His Excellency who is the flag bearer.

‘’Then we will sit with His Excellency who is the flag bearer, review it together as an executive and flag bearer and then reach a consensus or reach unanimity.

‘’After that His Excellency the president and the Coalition 2016 executive will call you and make a press statement.’’

However, President Adama Barrow has already made his position clear that he intends to serve his full five years in office and seek re-election at the end of his term in 2021.